Daughters Wedding
My daughter got married Saturday here in town. It was beautiful, everything went better than is could and should and I enjoyed myself to the extent that I could despite my extreme anxiety over the Father of the Bride toast. I have social anxiety on top of basic and some not so basic anxiety, add some panic in there, add some 'this guy does not like to bring attention to himself in any way, is an introvert but can fake it, and is in no way a public person (but can and does fake it all the time) and he prefers quiet alone time to being around people in general (but he can fake it)'.
Notice the numerous fake it references. Like hiding my drinking, hiding my booze, hiding everything to appear to family, friends, clients and others that I am the solid rock and foundation that I am supposed to be.
Yep, I imagine there are some of you like this reading this right now.
Anyway, I was seriously worried about drinking over this. I have one daughter and one son, so this was not practice'able, it would just happen and I would make it or not, but I would try. The main thing is that I did not drink up to the wedding, during some stressful times, I did not drink Saturday, and so far have not drank up till this moment. And God willing, I will make it to tomorrow without having drank today. If so, it was a great and blessed day.
Just had to do this brain dump. I imagine I will be hitting a meeting (AA) this afternoon, I need one, or 10.
Not once did anyone ask how I was doing, if I was worried about drinking, or anything else. I was not sure if this was the stereotypical "Father of the bride" being in the background thing (since it is really not his day), or if no one even thought that I might have drinking on my mind, which I did. Yet, mission accomplished, since I don't like any attention on me, so I got what I wanted I guess. The main thing was that I did not make anything about me, I think I played the part of dad as it should have been played, the toast went fine (I did not pass out or throw up or break down), and it was all a blur in a way. I am not sure if the 'blur' part is alcoholism related, but the entire weekend was like a dream, a little fuzzy, like I was on the outside looking in. It seems like others, like my wife, were able to be 'normal' and 'present'.
I am experiencing a HUGE letdown that I am very careful of right now. This is so similar to drinking on my 29, or 59th day, sabotaging my anniversary dates, or making the dates then drinking to sabotage the good that I did. Among other things I am a sabotage drinker, I drink because I have a hard time accepting good things, I drink from fear, so all in all, I was/am able to make ANYTHING about my drinking, which for the real alcoholic, maybe in a way we are not like this.
But I used all my tools, I kept it not about me, I took a lot of 'me' breaks to walk around alone in peace during the event, said a lot of little prayers of thanks, and never forgot to remember that,
"This too shall pass, and it always does". And it did. And I enjoyed my daughters wedding sober, a little stressed, but I did my toast and really enjoyed our father daughter dance, I talked to everyone that I could (really out of my comfort zone), and now feel like I need to be alone for a few days, except for this forum and AA, and having to be somewhere when it comes up.
Thank you for letting me brain dump this morning. It was VERY necessary. I really feel like I am on fragile shifting ground, so I will be taking it moment by moment today.